ABSTRACT
Industrial production stagnated in the interwar period. Capacities installed in the immediate postwar years were never fully utilised and there was industrial unemployment even before the depression. In striking contrast with this there was a significant increase of agricultural production in Western countries and in the output of cash crops around the world. Grain production benefited from progressive mechanisation and the use of chemical fertilisers. In many Western countries agricultural productivity increased by leaps and bounds in this way and agricultural labour could be greatly reduced. The countries of the periphery where many crops were produced by smallholders did not experience such an increase in productivity. The increase in output was usually achieved by extending cultivation rather than intensifying it.
